Nightmares
by I take 'crazy' as a compliment
Summary: There is a noise in the middle of the night. Naruto makes it, but Kakashi hears it. What difference can a single person in the right place at the right time make?
1. Chapter 1

Nightmares

_Naruto turned sharply round the corner, skidding lightly across pebbles, and hit a wall. Dead end. Fearfully glancing back at the way that he came, the tall 16 year old prepared to jump on to the roof. Fortifying his legs with chakra, he leapt up- and came down lower. Looking down, all of his growth was gone and Naruto was now just a small 4 year old, no longer a powerful ninja. All that said 4 year old could do was stand there on trembling legs and peer frantically around. Nothing. Dead end. No escape. He began to shake violently, cerulean eyes watering as shadows flickered in the lamplight coming towards him from the end of the alley. The dark alleyway slowly lightened as a lamp held by hooded figures was set on the ground in front of him. When had they got there? He didn't know. All that mattered was here, now, with hands surrendering to his opponents, no reason for a fight. Not that there was much of a fight, more like a beating (as it was intended to be) as hands and weapons flashed, kunai and shuriken hitting him as he cried out for help. Begging for it, but no-one came. No-one ever came, but this time Naruto had been hoping for Kakashi-sensei, for Sandaime-jiji, for Tsunade-baachan, for Sakura-chan, for Iruka-sensei, for Sasuke-teme, for Konohamaru, for any one of his precious people to turn up and save him. He didn't bother calling out for Hinata-chan; he knew that if she had been there the others would have stopped a long time ago, which was why Hinata-chan never showed up in his dreams. But his mind was truly its own victim, for as each person flashed through his mind's eye, a figure was revealed in their likeness. It wasn't them (only that could keep Naruto away from the darkness) but he cried anyway, bitter tears of pain and betrayal dripping down his whiskered cheeks as they moved in for the kill..._

Gasping, the blonde sat up. Tears poured unhindered down shaking features as his hands moved up slowly of their own accord to wipe away the weakness. Wow. He laughed shakily as he registered the nightmare; Kami, it had been weeks since the last one. They only came when he was exhausted... oh. Naruto deadpanned silently in his head as he looked around him and found... the camp. And the twisting cloth caught on his kunai that had unconsciously been attacking the imaginary attackers even though dream Naruto hadn't been able to stop them. _Damn. _He was good with his kunai, too good since the innocent sleeping bag had been shredded into hundreds of pieces that he had accidently thought were attackers. Oops. Bringing his other hand up to his face (oh good, it was holding a big piece of cloth) he wiped off all of the annoying tears that had fallen during his sleep. Stuffing the material back into the ragged shaped of his (virtually non-existent) sleeping bag; a silent blonde pranced lightly towards the still form of Kakashi-sensei. He flinched slightly upon seeing silver locks that he had last seen on dream Kakashi drenched in his blood, but firmly reminded himself _that it was just a dream._ Kneeling quietly he reached out to grasp his sensei's shoulder... then stopped. What could he do anyway? Naruto had the spare things in his seals, so why go to Kakashi? Mind made up, he slowly stood up and walked over to his bed space.

The blonde unsealed his new sleeping bag with a small _pop_ and froze, looking around quickly to check no-one had woken up. No-one had. Good. Busying himself with setting out the new one, he failed to notice that this one was black, and not the green that he had shredded during his sleep. Peaceful once more, Naruto went back to sleep silently.

Contrary to what Naruto had thought, one person was awake. Kakashi lay there still as death, senses on full alert as the familiar sound of a seal unsealing rang out amongst the trees, and had been most interested to see Naruto as the source of the sound. The jounin was curious as to why the boy no, a young man now. He had grown so fast. All his adorable students had) was up at this time with seals. Checking that the chuunin (well, chuunin with a bit of ANBU on the side) was asleep again, he stalked over to him and found the seal that he had been fiddling with earlier. With a smirk sent Naruto's way (powerful he might be, but he was lacking experience) the silver haired shinobi set up privacy barriers before opening the fuuinjutsu. He did not find what he was expecting. A set of newly polished kunai, maybe. A set of newly polished kunai with a new invention on, maybe lightning seals, or fire seals, sure. Not _this. _A ripped-to-shreds, not-really-worthy-of-the-name sleeping bag. Looking at it in surprise, he wanted to laugh at himself for sneaking over and risking the wrath of Naruto and tampered seals (Kami, that was scary. Kakashi had seen him verbally reduce Sakura to almost tears, and whilst he'd apologised almost immediately afterwards, no-one ever wanted to see that again). He did find himself wondering how it had got that way though. Had Naruto been out practicing again? It was hard to know, especially when the other's stealth was the best in Konoha, and among the top 5 in the nearby countries. The jounin picked it up to check if there were any ink stains on it (had to solve this mystery that Naruto had left his dear old sensei) to make it stronger and harder for kunai to pass through. However, what remained on the cloth was not ink, but _tears. Tears_. When had the boy-young man- been crying? When did he _ever _cry?

With a start he realised; Naruto had never cried- to his knowledge. Odds were that he cried alone, but nothing bad had happened recently so why? Sighing, he put it out of his mind. Naruto- and his mysterious sleeping bag/ pieces of material- could wait until the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

Kakashi woke up. Kakashi rolled over. Kakashi fell asleep.

Naruto woke up. Naruto rolled over. Naruto found a shredded sleeping bag under his head. What! Naruto studied the sleeping bag. Even ripped into so many pieces it was obviously the same one that he had put away in the seal last night, so what was it doing out? Kami, had someone found it? What were they doing with his seals? The young man began to rage silently, before forcing himself to calm down. Anger still bubbled beneath the surface (how dare someone he trusted fiddle with his seals? How dare they almost find out Naruto's greatest secret?) but as there was no-one to direct it at, the blonde decided to bide his time.

All throughout that day Sakura and Sasuke (if he paid attention) could tell that there was something up with their teammates. One was distracted and kept looking for the other, whilst the other was very angry and ignoring the first one. Inner Sakura snorted.

**"Boys. Why don't they just confront each other and get it over with. Cha, idiots, the two of them!" **Sakura berated her, but couldn't help but agree with her inner self. Finally, at the end of the day, when they set up camp she took first watch, put Sasuke on second watch and shoved her sensei and Naruto into a tent to make up.

Kakashi stared at Naruto. Naruto stared back. Kakashi put up privacy seals. Naruto rolled his eyes. Naruto undid the privacy seals. Naruto activated the ones in the tent material. Kakashi felt foolish. Kakashi sat down. Kakashi stared at Naruto. Naruto stared back.

A sigh echoed. Kakashi raised a mask covered face and looked at Naruto and said nonchalantly

"Maa, maa Naruto-kun. What are you so angry about?"

"I think you know _sensei. _You've been daydreaming all day," Naruto spat back. Kakashi cringed and went to explain.

"I'm sorry Naruto. You see, I wanted to know what my cute little Naru-chan was doing with-"The blonde cut him off.

"Don't try to reason with me sensei. You know that I don't like people to meddle with my seals. What if it had been one that I modified? What if you had decided to fiddle with a seal that blows up everything in a 100 metre radius if you don't give it the right chakra, like I stopped Sasuke doing? Why don't you trust me?" By the end Naruto was panting, fists clenched tight as his eyes glared accusatively at the jounin. Kakashi replied softly

"So you're angry because that could have hurt me or this team, because you think I don't trust you. But what if, what if I opened it so that you could trust me? So that you could trust me with your secrets? Don't think that I haven't noticed how you make sure that all of your inventions work how they should alone, how you never show any side of yourself to us than the happy-go-lucky blonde?" Kakashi leaned forwards and stared straight into Naruto's eyes, and pulled him into a tight hug.

"I love you Naruto, as do the rest of this team, Iruka, Hokage-sama, all of the Rookie 12, Konohamaru and the majority of this village. It's time to let the past go,"

Kakashi felt as Naruto started shuddering, huge gasping breaths rasping as eyes welled up with tears. Kakashi stayed there with him as he finally let out all of the tears that he never cried when he was younger. Finally, after hours had passed (_Kage bunshin_ had been sent on watch), the jounin found himself holding a sleeping blonde.

That night, Naruto slept peacefully.


End file.
